Authentic Scandinavia AS — Attraction in Oslo

I hope my review will be approved as it’s genuinely what I had encountered & I wish to alert other travellers so they can avoid these unfortunate experiences that I had faced with this tour booking agent.

My 1st terrible experience was not receiving any email from them with regards to the change on my original itinerary, causing me to missed out on the UNESCO listed Nærøyfjord cruise & ended up only joining the back half of the cruise, which doesn’t cover the beautiful scenery on the Nærøyfjord’s side. They claimed they did not receive any email of the changes from the cruise vendor. I was originally supposed to board the boat at the listed location on my itinerary but it’s changed to boarding a bus to another location to get to the boat.

Next, they claimed that the vendor also doesn’t sail their boat to the Nærøyfjord’s side bcoz of ice on the water. However, upon checking with the vendor, incl the ticketing counter at the Flåm customer service center, the boat DOES cruise to the Nærøyfjord side, but only to as far as it can go due to the ice. Indeed that’s what it is, me & another 3 stranded passengers waited about 45 minutes for the boat to return from the Nærøyfjord’s side before boarding it for the last half of the cruise back to Flam. Just like that, my maiden trip to Norway is totally ruined by this irresponsible tour agent. I don’t fly all the way from Singapore to Norway (long hours & high cost) to miss a UNESCO heritage site due to their inefficiencies.

As if this blunder isn’t bad enough, I faced a second big blunder from them too! In this tour package, I also paid for porter service to transfer my luggage from Bergen to an Oslo hotel. Imagine my horrors when I reached Oslo & found out no luggage was delivered there. I went through yet another terrible ordeal having to follow up with this tour agent several times using my Singapore roaming line to a Norwegian line that will cost me a bomb on IDD rates, to ask on the whereabouts of my bag. But I have to catch a flight the next day early morning to Tromso. So how was I suppose to fly without my luggage? Again, they merely blamed it on the porter service vendor for the non delivery. After many phone calls, luckily my luggage is found & it was decided that they will send through speed post to Tromso the next day. Despite of this recovery action, it still doesn’t remove the terrible shock & anxiety I got from such an inept company who fails terribly in their coordination with various vendors to ensure up to date changes are duly conveyed to customers & services are properly followed through. Pls avoid this tour agent!

Update In response to AS’ reply - pls don’t use weather as a cover up. Precisely, due to weather condition (ice on the water surface), the boat couldn’t sail & dock at the usual meeting point at Gudvangen but had to change to another meeting point instead. That’s why, the vendor had duly sent out emails to all passengers on the changes to the meeting point prior to the cruise. However, I only found out about the email thru a fellow passenger when I finally boarded the boat at the tail end of the cruise. The passenger told me she had earlier received an email from the vendor on the change. But your staff, Victoria, denied ever receiving any email. I had also verify with both the vendor’s boat & bus crew & they affirmed that emails are the company’s standard form of communication with their customers for any tour updates. I didn’t receive their email simply bcoz I didn’t booked directly with the them so they don’t hv my email address. Since I booked thru you, they could only send you the email instead. Also, if the bus driver was indeed looking for the 4 lost passengers as you claimed, then it’s really strange that he missed us, esp when we were on time & waited promptly at the one & only boarding point outside the Gudvangen cafe cum tourist shop. Being the ONLY boarding point there, wouldn’t we be so visible, no? Again, pls don’t mislead anyone by deflecting your incompetency & lack of organisation to...

Let me start by admitting that I'm a novice traveler, especially internationally. We had our first international family trip 2 years ago. The trip was a family gift from my mother, who passed after gifting it to us. So all plans had been initiated through a high end travel agency. The trip was wonderful, but the ending price tag was not something that I could ever continue if I wanted more international travel. It seems like many people will plan a trip with the intention of another destination "next time". Based on our first expensive trip, my travel philosophy is see as much as you can because chances are, the next trip will be to a different location so I can see multiple destinations in my lifetime. I am Swedish by heritage, so I knew that Sweden had to be a place to travel, especially with my young adult children. But if I'm going to see Sweden, I need to see other Scandinavian locales at the same time. The idea of designing my own itinerary was very overwhelming and using a high end travel agency would minimize my ability to see more countries and do more, so I researched and found Authentic Scandinavia. I was concerned initially, living in the US, with different time zones and not necessarily being able to pick up the phone at any time with questions. However, I am here to share that this was NEVER an issue with any of my interactions. Typically, I was researching at night, after a long day. So after reading an email from them, I would write back late at night in US but would typically have a response when I was up early the next morning. They were very knowledgeable and helpful with additional sightseeing or changes to the itinerary. Their company provides the "backbone" or structure to your trip, with your requirements and then you fill in the "body" of your trip. For instance, I knew that work requirements would limit us to only being able to take a 10 day trip. I knew that I wanted to see Sweden, Denmark and Norway. I figured it made the most sense to see the Captial cities of each country. But decided that if we were making a big trip, I had to also include UNESCO sites, like the Norwegian Fjords! Their format is just that: time frame, countries, extras. So I chose their 10 day captial cities and Fjords trip. I could have added on additional days in any of the locations. I could have added on tours within any of the locations. But the structure was there: hotels, transportation between cities and add on experiences. As a family, we went through add on tours and added them or didn't. In some cities, we added on excursions. In others, we looked independently for walking tours or bike tours. We could choose one level of hotel, or upgrade to a higher level. We chose to upgrade to "gold" level hotels. They were all really nice! So I didn't have to research hotels in every location. They have clearly established relationships with the hotels they book with. The hotels were very centrally located within the city parameters, as well as to the transportation hubs. So we were walking from central train stations or ferry ports rolling our suitcases to and from the hotels. Travel on the trains and buses was really easy and comfortable. An a US resident, I wouldn't consider travelling here this way. We encountered delays, as one would expect, with using mass transit. It all happened to work out with us with our scheduled activities. I was called and emailed when these delays happened to advise me of the delay and to try to work out how to work around them. After coming home from our trip, I was emailed and informed that we would be getting a refund because of the delays! Seriously? It was not their fault! But what an unexpected surprise! We really had a fabulous experience! The cost was reasonable, compared to what we've previously traveled, the customer service provided was fantastic, and the accommodations and all arrangements were handled so smoothly! We highly recommend Authentic Scandinavia for your...

We have booked the Golden Route tour with Authentic Scandinavia in July 2023. The logistic was flawless, we were provided before the trip with all relevant vouchers and tickets for various transport means and hotels. We chose the silver accommodation package which serves its purpose. The hotels are nice and clean, in good locations and the breakfast is very diverse. I truly recommend this tour which takes you from Oslo to Geiranger (the little tour with the electric talking car is a must), and the further to Ålesund (the sea life safari was one of the highlights of the trip) and then to Bergen and back to Oslo. We were very happy to have chosen the long route from Bergen to Oslo through Nærøyfjord & Flåm. The entire journey was a bliss and very diverse as we got to see a lot of nature but also small and big cities. Many thanks to Authentic Scandinavia for organizing this trip. The itinerary was extremely detailed and provided tons of information on what to see, where to eat, what to do, how to reach the hotels, the bus/train/ferry stations. Prior to the trip they answered all our questions and accommodated all our requests. They also provided contact details to use during the trip, however, this was not necessary as...